PTC User World Event 2010

CEO Dick Harrison (Jim Heppleman will suceed him as CEO in October) was the 7th employee back when PTC started. He says PTC's "business has never been stronger." The company even weathered 2009 well, he says. Why? Because of its product development system strategy, which supports the trend of increasingly global companies. He lists a comparative licence-growth rate over the last few years as:

PTC - 38%

Cadence - 14%

Ansys - 10%

Oracle - 6%

Autodesk -5%

Dassault - 4%

Synopsis

Mentor Graphics

Harrison says Windchill and SharePoint is PTC's biggest growth area. Customers include: Raytheon, GE Healthcare, Volvo truck, Siemenns, Stryker, ITT Industries, and Adidas. He also says that the Windchill revenue has gone from $175 million to $500 million in 2010.

What about the future? MCAD and parametric technology was disruptive in 1985 to 2000; 2000 to 2010 all major developers showed incremental improvement; today the CAD market is static.

The main problems that still exist, he says are usability, interoperability, and assembly management (it's impossible to model millions of configurations in a traditional CAD system).

Next to speak was Brian Shepherd, EVP, product development (head of R&D), who talked about some new products and enhancements:

Many users use Excel for project management; many companies have not standardized on how they manage projects, he says. A better approach: "let 1,000 flowers bloom," That is, let each team handle program portfolios as they need to. Therefore, PTC has come up with PPMLink, built on SharePoint 2010, which lets users order all the product in families and create metrics about each. Also lets users manage the governeance processs.

Shepherd says many companies gather requirements using Word or Excel, a disconnected approach. What is needed is the capability to define, control, share, and link. A solution in Windchill for managing requirements lets users create bill of requirements, create verification requirements, and determine how to functionally break down designs. You can map that you are satisfying requirements agains the BOM.

Another new product: Mathcad Prime, (the derivitive). More details on this are forthcoming later this year.

In the realm of social product development: There are news ways to stay connected via Facebook and twitter. This approach makes sense inside of company firewalls for product development. New Product: Windchill SocialLink, built on SharePoint 2010; supports virtual brainstorming; skills inventory; and wikis. Also, suggests to users how to keep their profiles updated based on the types of work they have been doing in Windchill; eg, say, sheetmetal work.

According to Shepherd, the biggest release of Windchill in PTC's history is 2010: Improvements include:

--Products analytics to support an increasing focus on quality, reliability.

How do you keep track of costs? InSight will incude cost analytics later this year, taking data from Windchill-configured BOMs. The idea: "quality life cycle management" -- associate eBOMs to mBOMs (engineering BOMs to manufacturing BOMs).

According to Jim Heppleman, PLM is HOT. The definition of PLM has changed. PLM has replaced ERP. You will decide your whole supply-chain strategy in PLM. Better yet, PLM is now truly out-of-the box, he says. Many companies moving from SAP to Windchill, says Heppleman.